Author name: Prashant Reddy

T. Prashant Reddy graduated from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, with a B.A.LLB (Hons.) degree in 2008. He later graduated with a LLM degree (Law, Science & Technology) from the Stanford Law School in 2013. Prashant has worked with law firms in Delhi and in academia in India and Singapore. He is also co-author of the book Create, Copy, Disrupt: India's Intellectual Property Dilemmas (OUP).

The Herceptin patent fiasco at the Indian Patent Office – Divisionals gone wrong!

/ By / Patent

As has already been reported by several newspapers, Genentech, now a part of Roche, faces the loss of more than one of its several patent applications covering Herceptin, the extremely effective and expensive breast cancer drug. According to the ‘Statement of Working’, (Thanks to Madhulika we have a copy of the form here) data filed by Genentech this year, for the ‘parent’ Herceptin patent (205534), the company earned a whopping Rs. 127,65,31,000 (127.65 crores) from the sale of 23,280 units […]

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APAA succeeds in getting IPAB a new home in Delhi; also objects to Patent Office fee hike

/ By / Uncategorized

The Asian Patent Attorney Association (Indian Group), represented by its Secretary, Prathiba Singh has succeeded in getting the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) a new residence for its hearings in Delhi. This latest victory for APAA, is a part of a long running litigation which APAA initiated before the Delhi High Court back in 2011. This was the same litigation which led to the appointment of Justice Prabha Sridevan as the Chairperson of the IPAB in 2011. The latest order

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London High Court awards damages against an Indian law firm for professional negligence in patent prosecution

/ By / Uncategorized

In a recent development, first reported by Kian Ganz of Legally India, the London High Court has reportedly entered a default judgment of £100,000 against Fox Mandal in a lawsuit filed by one of its former clients, Lawrence Karat, alleging professional negligence in a patent prosecution being handled by the law firm. The Legally India story can be read over here.  According to the Legally India report:  Karat claimed that Fox could not retrieve his case files and a power

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Special Report: The Curious case of the “A” Files: Is the truth out there?

/ By / Drug Regulation

The recent $500 million dollar fine against Ranbaxy by the U.S. Government has finally sparked some scrutiny of the Indian drug regulatory process and its highly understaffed drug regulator. This comes close on the heels of two damning Parliamentary committee reports indicting our drug regulatory body for cosying upto industry and neglecting the cause of public health… a cause for which they were allegedly set up in the first place. Unfortunately for us, the Indian Government continues to be in denial. Both the Commerce Ministry and the Health

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Ghost Post: Performance under Copyright Act restricted to live performance?

/ By / Copyright

A practising lawyer sent me this very interesting ghost post on a possible conflict, in the scope of performance rights, between the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 and the Copyright Rules, 2013. The lawyer in question has preferred to remain anonymous. I think the post raises some interesting issues for debate. I don’t think the issue has been raised in any of the constitutional challenges but I’m guessing it should crop up soon enough. Performance under Copyright Act restricted to live

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Google’s partnership with Airtel: The beginning of the end of ‘network neutrality’ in India?

/ By / Uncategorized

In an interesting turn of events, as pointed out by Sudipto Sircar on the India Law and Technology blog over here, Airtel & Google have partnered to offer a new service where Airtel’s mobile users can access the Google search engine, Gmail and Google+ services for free, up to 1 GB. According to Airtel’s statement to the ET, “…Free Zone powered by Google, will give Airtel mobile customers access to mobile web search and feature phone friendly versions of Gmail and Google+

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Calcutta High Court suspects IPRS of indulging in collusive litigation

/ By / Copyright

As we had reported earlier this year, in February, the infamous dispute before the Barasat Civil Court was re-ignited by Asha Studio which filed a fresh lawsuit suing Javed Akhtar, the Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS) etc. As discussed in that earlier post, the case reached the Calcutta High Court, which had remanded the matter to the lower courts, with the observation that IPRS was required to adhere to the new royalty sharing requirements under the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012. I

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The proposed Patent Office fee hike – Is it required?

/ By / Uncategorized

As Rajiv had blogged last month, the DIPP is proposing an across the board fee hike for filing and prosecuting patents at the Patent Office. For a quick recap, the notification by the DIPP proposes an increase of up to 100% in several categories, with a lower fee for those preferring to take the e-filing route. For an office which is supposed to be dealing with cutting-edge technology, the patent office has been dreadfully slow to embrace the joys of

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Sun’s challenge to the Glivec patent in the U.S.: A crucial case for Big Pharma’s propaganda machine

/ By / Uncategorized

As has been reported in several papers now, Sun Pharma Global FZE has sued Novartis on June 7, 2013 before the Federal District Court in the American State of New Jersey, seeking a declaratory judgment that the patent covering Gleevec is invalid. According to media reports this action is a follow up to the ANDA filed by Sun Pharma back in 2007. Shamnad had written about that ANDA back in 2007, in a post which can be accessed over here.

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Royal Orchid Hotels scores a crucial trademark victory in its long running battle with the Kamat Group

/ By / Trademark

In a decision dated 18th June, 2013 a bench of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB), has allowed the appeals filed by Royal Orchid Hotel Ltd. (ROHL), against the decision of the Deputy Registrar of Trademarks, to allow the oppositions filed by the Kamat Group to two trademark applications for the marks ‘Royal Orchid Hotel’ & ‘Royal Orchid’ in Class 42 i.e. the category of services. The order can be accessed over here.  The winning party was represented by M.S.

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